I just finished taking a course for the sixth consecutive time.
Yep, you read that right? Not a typo.
I’ve never taken a course twice let alone repeat it five times especially after feeling like I failed it the first time around. Write of Passage isn’t just any course though. It’s an online experience that has continually been changing my life ever since I first began in November 2019. Each time I come out feeling more self-aware with more writing friends.
I can say that without a doubt, the trajectory of my life is forever changed for the better because of this.
Some first-time students have even called me a groupie. I’m a true fan who has been hitching myself onto the WOP bandwagon while on tour for live cohorts and attending as many of their public appearances as possible. I got rejected the first time I applied, which fueled the fire for me to double down my writing routine with 100 days of writing and 100,000 words in my portfolio in 2020. After I obsessively wrote and took the course three times, I finally became a mentor to help teach the course as well.
The main reasons most students join are for three reasons:
1. Set up a writing system with a website and email newsletter
2. Shift their mindset from a content consumer to a content creator
3. Accelerate personal and professional opportunities by writing online
These are all spectacular reasons. I first joined because I failed to finish writing my book’s manuscript. I let fear win that I couldn’t be a dyslexic writer or author. My reasons for coming back to the course have evolved to be a bit different. So why am I a Write of Passage (WOP) groupie?
Here are my three reasons:
- Accept that I am already enough.
- Be reminded about how to rewire my brain.
- Meet and lead curious writers who fall astray to ideate, write and edit together.
(1) Write of Passage has helped me accept that I am already enough.
This course has given me permission to trust that I already know what I need to write. That I am already enough with who I am. I’ve learned not only to learn to express myself but to express my whole truth regularly and often. I can trust the innate gifts of my curiosity and intuition.
While writing online, I get to embrace and fully lean into what I am obsessed with and passionate about without needing permission. I get to be weird and amplify my wonkiness for who I am while trusting that the Internet is a sea swimming with other freaky fish, who I can help feel belonging in this lonely world. I feel courageous. I get to be more assertive about who I am and what I believe. I do not have to be a perfectionist. I can iterate and experiment more than I ever have. I have no excuses not to write, I can choose to be social and express myself rather than feeling lonely because to exist as a human does not need to be scary.
(2) Write of Passage rewired my brain.
This online school is far from the five-paragraph essay Mrs. Thomas taught in fifth grade. I had to unlearn pretty much everything from my past English classes in school to relearn this new system. This rewiring of how I view the world has fueled my inspiration to unlearn and relearn anything in my life. From moving my mindset as a victim with dyslexia to enjoying running to friendzoning my phone. It has unhinged me and flipped a switch of a dimmed flickering lightbulb.
Some of the most daunting lessons that rattled my brain during this course were:
- Writing first and researching later, if needed..
- Life is a rich source of ambient research.
- Imitation is not plagiarism. It is the starting point that I innovate from.
- Active intentional consumption is fuel for me to create.
- My creativity wouldn’t run out the more I wrote.
- A portfolio is a colosseum of bricks, where each idea is a brick that I shared.
(3) I love to meet other curious fans to ideate, write and edit together. I’ve made some of the closest friends ever without ever meeting them in person. Magically students that are hyper-curious individuals with various interests join the program. They make it the norm to passionately ideate and write about a range of topics that light them up.
This course has allowed me to become closer to who I am. Write of Passage has changed my life and I will continue to be a WOP Groupie indefinitely.
A snippet of this was also published on Substack: ☮️ Letter 105: I am a Groupie
